MSI MS-1651 Montevina BTO Notebook Barebone

Yeah, that makes sense. You do have to be careful when transporting that 9 cell.

Anyway, my IFL90 was recently stolen so I am ordering a 15:3 from Paladin. Guess I'm the guinea pig.

 

I ordered mine last weekend so I may be one of the first guinea pigs.

 

Congrats to both of you two guineas ... I mean Honorable Centinul & v1k1ng1001,

Hope one of you two guys (or both) can post back some "Real Life" pictures and may be even a YouTube video if you have the capability.

I will be waiting eagerly to you guys posting ... since a Flush back-end on a laptop surely sells itself to me.

G!

 

I also ordered one too! Too bad they were delayed to "the week of 25th August".

 

I didn't get the barebones model, but I did get the MSI-1651 in the form of the Force 3551 from Xotic. Obviously I'm still waiting. I'm really not a patient person.

 

Well one/all of you post reviews and videos for all of us to see. My guess is the final finish will look like the dell 1525 but it would be nice to get a non staged view of the laptop.

 

I'm starting to hear horror stories about MSI laptops. They're making me rather nervous.

 

^--^

Two things to find out:

1. Which models...how old are they? From two generations back they were no where near as good as they are now. Last generation and this generation they are great...before that they were hot and loud and almost featureless.

2. Branded or custom built? The custom built ones will tend to be better than the MSI branded ones. Most of the branded ones went into the big box stores and they were the "cheapies" for that market.

 

When you think you have it figured out ... here it comes the "Bomb".

Hey SomeGuy ... can you post teh URL for the Bad News that you have been hearing ... pleasssse!

Thanks,
G!

 

It's not like I have any real evidence, just anecdotes like this one.

The thing is, you rarely (if ever) hear stories like that about Sagers. I went for the 1651 over the 2096 and it was a really tough call. I'm still not entirely sure I made the right one.

 

^--^
Relax...you made the right choice. The MSI-1651 is much more feature rich and has at least equal build quality...and you can't beat the 24/7 DOMESTIC Support you get from Xoticpc...

Well, maybe there is one other company that could give you that level of support

 

Hey, if you guys shipped to Canada I would have considered it .

I think I'm even more nervous since if anything does go wrong I'm going to lose a few hundred bucks just sending the thing back. Any way I look at it, it's quite a leap of faith.

 

Well, that would be the same whether you buy either model.

 

It'll definitely start shipping next week right? When will you guys get hold of it?

 

We expect to begin shipping the week of August 25th, but as with any new model release there is no such thing as "definitely"

 

I just want to have enough time to get to know (and trust...) it properly before school starts.

 

Paladin, do you expect to be shipping the high rez screen versions too at for the week of august 25th?

 

We hope so, later in the week, but at this point it is too early to tell for sure.

 

Usually, when you talk about Sager quality, you are talking about Clevo quality. The lone exception to this rule is the 2096--then you are talking about Compal quality.

So, if you are hearing good things about the 2096, you're dealing in a slightly different area. That said, SAGER tends to keep to higher quality ODMs for their rebranded laptops.

 

^-^
As does PowerNotebooks.com with our PowerPro and Crown brands. If it isn't top quality, we don't carry it.

 

If you guys have test models, any chance we can see 3dmark06 numbers? Thanks.

 

We don't bench evaluation models. We only bench production models, and they are not in country yet.

Once we get them next week, we will not have time to do any benchmarking because we need to get the pre-production testing done, and then to the production line to get all the pre-orders out.

After that is finished and we have time to take a breath we will be able to play with them, but then users will have them by then as well so we will probably wait to see what their results are. Everyone seems to like to see user scores more than ours.

 

Any chance that you could get some more detailed pictures of what it looks like?

 

Sure, when we get some time.

Actually we just put a new picture up tonight showing the right side detail.

 

Hi Paladin,

Nice Pictures THANKS!

G!

 

what is the difference between those two WXGA and WSXGA+ screen option?

and can i pay with 2 different credit card( my card and my dads card ) to pay XotixPC?

edit: and powernotebook should really consider shipping to canada It sucks for us.

 

WXGA is lower resolution then WSXGA+. There may be other differences, search the forum. I believe there's a sticky thread someplace that's just about choosing a screen.

I believe the WXGA is 1280x800 while the WSXGA+ is 1680x1050.

 

Close

WXGA = 1280x800

WSXGA+ = 1680x1050

 

Thanks, changed it.

 

Does that have any thing to do with a Non Disclosure Agreement and keeping products under wraps before launch?

And if you can answer it, do you get evaluation models before official product launches?

 

No, it has nothing to do with NDA.

It is bad practice to benchmark or "review" in any way a non-production model.

Yes, we do get evaluation models prior to mass production, but if we are going to do anyone a proper service with reviewing any laptop model, it has to be the production version instead of some engineering sample.

 

Yesterday I put my order in with Xoticpc for a barebones MS-1651... with P8400 proc and the wifi card (I don't want to mess with putting those in!).

A little nervous as I was hoping to wait for reviews to come out, but I've been without a lappy for almost 6 months now and can't wait any longer!

Hoping it comes very soon, along with the other pieces from NewEgg.

 

I meant do you get evaluation models prior to the announcement (public) by the company that the product exists?

 

Hehe.. You did the same thing I did, except I got a P9500. CPU + Wifi on barebone.

 

Sometimes before, sometimes after...usually before.

 

Is MS-1651 shipping now?

 

I don't think its shipping yet . Forgot where I found it, but I believe it's shipping on the week of August 25th. Today marks the fourth business day mines in Phase 2 (building)

 

They are in country and will begin shipping the week of August 25th.

 

Those who ordered 1651 barebones have entered phase 2, while mine (not barebones) is still in phase 1. I'm sure it doesn't matter, I'm just wondering why.

 

Am I the only one who is buying their 15:3 with everything already installed because I do not want to deal with installing any drivers or setting anything up?

 

I did the same with XoticPC. While I could probably have done the job, and I'm perfectly capable of putting together a desktop PC, I'm not comfortable assembling my own laptop just yet.

 

If you can build a desktop you would have absolutely no trouble with a notebook, they are much easier. Most have 1 large system door for the CPU, memory, wireless, and turbo memory. A second door for the hdd and your done...

All the drivers are included from the manufacture....

 

Not by a long shot

Most people buy them fully assembled with the 3 Year Warranty.

 

Can someone upload an image of the Force brand logo (Xoticpc's branding for the MSI 1651). I want to judge if it is ugly or not, also if you request it can they just not put it on there?

Thanks

 

Even if they put it there you can easily take it off...so no worries.

 

so hard choosing between MSI 1651 and Sager NP8660

 

Give me a call, maybe I can help.

 

They're quite different. Are you a committed gamer and willing to spend the extra ~$400 for the NP8660? Then do it. If you don't game that often, then get the MSI.

The main hardware difference that I can see is that the MSI has the nVidia 9600GT, while the NP8660 has the nVidia 9800GT (significantly better). Also the NP8660 has DDR3 RAM, but I think the vid cards are the main difference.

 

Between the 9600m GT and the 9800m GT is a HUGE gap in performance. That is the only difference between these two notebooks (DDR3-1066 ram as of now is approximately the same as DDR2-800 due to latency). Those who frequently play games like Crysis will definately want the 9800m GT, but those who don't need to play every game @ high with decent fps can live with a 9600m GT, which is still a pretty nice gpu.

 

I went with the 1651. I previously had a Compal with the santa rosa + 8600m gt 512 and I was able to play TF2 on high settings just fine.